PC to TV converters

[nooob]

Tryin to connect my pc to tv.. so that i can watch movies on my tv, essentially using my pc as a media center pc.

i know i know, get a video card with tv out, pretty simple right? nope. being a cheap moron, i bought a dell (dim 3000), w/o a graphics card- they only offered a $300 graphics card... figured i'll install my own.

to my surprise, dell's MB didn't have an agp slot! (f**kin cheap bastards.. damn them and their cost-cutting business model to hell!). as i still had party poker to entertain me.. i didn't think much of it.

FFwd 3 years later.. now i'm stuck with a comp and no party poker to entertain me... so i'm tryin to connect the pc to the tv.. now since i can't get a tv out card (only pci slots- 32 bit slots at that), i was thinkin about getting one of these..

http://sewelldirect.com/pc-to-tv.asp

anybody try one of these?

[goldtoes]

uhh why can't you get a video card just because you don't have an AGP slot?

they do make PCI cards that would work fine in your situtation, as far as I know.

[nooob]

Nope. the pci cards i saw are all 128 bit pci interfaces- doesnt' fit the standard white pci slots..

either they're pci-x, pci-e, or 128 bit pci, which has 3 male pin interfaces..

if you can link me to one... i will be very grateful.

[buckslayer80]

PCI videocard FTW.

But the performance is not going to be very good unless you set the PC up to be a true HTPC. If the PC is as old as you say you wil most likely be highly disappointed in the output quality.

[nooob]

p4 2.8 ghz, with 512 mb ram.. i can't quiet remember the bus speed..

80 gb hd.. i was shocked to find the mb w/o any agp slots.. i didn't think they make those anymore.

i tried newegg.com and coudn't find any standard pci cards.

For example,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowIm...116-620-06.jpg,15-116-620-01.jpg,15-116-620-02.jpg,15-116-620-03.jpg,15-116-620-04.jpg,15-116-620-05.jpg&CurImage=15-116-620-02.jpg&Depa=0&Description=Hauppauge%20WinT V-PVR-150%20MCE%20PCI%20Interface%201042%20Tuner%20Card% 20-%20Retail

see the pci interface, with 3 male pin interfaces? that's not a standard pci interface.. which i'm sure you know. all of geforce fx's and radeon's that have pci interfaces has those types of pci interfaces. and no, they dont fit into the standard white (32-bit) pci slots..

[Meech]

Modded Xbox with Xbox Media Center. Works great.

[nooob]

unless i'm sorely mistaken, and could jam the card in, w/o using the inner most pin interface..

but i didn't want to do that.. and i'm pretty sure that's not a good idea. is it?

[nooob]

[ QUOTE ]
Modded Xbox with Xbox Media Center. Works great.

[/ QUOTE ]

i'm sure it does.. sadly, i dont have an xbox. and i'd really like to use my pc- bigger storage, faster processors, better multimedia functionality.

that was the reasoning anyway..

[goldtoes]

I'm pretty sure you could use any PCI card in any PCI slot no matter what the interface bits are. it would just run at the slower speed, right?

and the way it looks - it doesn't matter with the breaks in the slots, it will still slide down in to a PCI slot.

for example:


will fit in a PCI slot

[nooob]

are you sure about this? I did have geforce fx 5200.. 256 mb and when i tried to fit it in.. well, it didn't really fit right.. and i wasn't going to jam it in, lest i wont be able to return it.